This is one of three suspects detectives are looking for who burgled a 90-year-old woman's Bethnal Green home by pretending to be plumbers.

The e-fit image has been issued by Scotland Yard this week in the hunt for the gang police say targeted the woman on January 19.

The officers are appealing for public help in tracking them down and are alerting elderly householders to be cautious about strangers calling.

“The woman has been left shaken by the men who followed her into her home,” Det Con Kate Osborne said. “They spotted her in the street then followed her.”

Police want to hear from anyone who recognises the man or has information about all three who were driving a dark blue Fiat Bravo.

The burglars drove past the woman in the street, turned the car round and followed her, then parked and walked through a buzzer-controlled gate behind her.

One of them approached as she arrived at her front door. He claimed to be a plumber looking for a water leak in the block of flats and said he needed to get inside her property. He sprayed water on the floor and ceiling to make it appear as if there had been a leak.

The ruse distracted the woman while one of his accomplices rifled her bedroom and stole clothing.

The pensioner only realised the property was being burgled when a man she had never seen before suddenly came out of the bedroom.

All three hurriedly left the block and drove off in the Fiat with what’s believed to have been false number plates.

The man in the e-fit image is about 35, large, and was wearing a grey jumper and trousers. All three are all believed to have links to Essex and Hertfordshire.

Detectives are appealing for anyone with information or may remember seeing anything suspicious at around 2.45pm on January 19 in Bethnal Green to call 101 or tweet @MetCC, quoting reference CAD 982/01MAR1, or contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800-555111.

The exact location was not being revealed by Scotland Yard as the pensioner was said to be vulnerable.